How (de) Winter came to Hogwarts
by Rumour of an Alchemist
Summary: Alternate Universe. How Genevieve de Winter came to be at Hogwarts in September of 1991. Supplemental material for 'Saint Potter'. Characters and events which have diverged from canon.


Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter. I am not Leslie Charteris. I do not own The Saint.

Note: The following chapter concerns Genevieve de Winter, and provides some background material concerning now she came to be at Hogwarts on the night of the first of September, 1991. It is set in an alternate universe which was impacted by The Saint, in which James Potter married not Lily Evans but a (muggle) grand-daughter of Simon Templar and Sophie Theresa Potter is 'The-Girl-Who-Lived'. Some characters, situations, and events have differed considerably from canon. This piece of work is supplemental to my 'Saint Potter' story.

Further Note (translation): Occasional french words are scattered through this piece. In the event that any reader is curious, they loosely translate into english as follow: _maman_ - mummy; _papa_ - daddy; _grand-mère_ - grandmother; _grand-père_ - grandfather; _la Patrie_ - the homeland; _le conseil des baguettes_ - the council of wands; _merci beaucoup_ - thank-you very much.

* * *

Genevieve de Winter should have been ensconced in the elegance and comfort of Beauxbatons, tonight, instead of in this brooding northern fortress in a foreign land. She should have arrived at the practically palatial French school in a gilded carriage pulled by the finest horses and driven by a squib turned-out in resplendent uniform – passing along the way through extensive and beautiful gardens in the evening sun. Instead she had had a boat ride across a borderline sinister and mist-shrouded Scottish lake, accompanied by two idiots who were _apparently_ her own age and a demented house-elf with an umbrella. Not that the umbrella hadn't been _practical_, but a warm and dry evening, surrounded by the refined, well-ordered, buzz of bees under a parasol _could_ have been what she'd had instead.

Except that this was necessary.

Genevieve wasn't sure exactly what was going – there had been strained faces and stressed voices around the de Winter family homes recently, and conversations between adults which had hushed at once whenever children entered the room. Something was clearly disturbing the counsels of the family. _Maman_ had actually flown into a rage over something twice in the last six months – a full-blown, _veela_ rage – which Genevieve had never seen before from _maman_ in her life. And then there were strange visitors at odd hours from representatives of other important French families or from officials of _le conseil des baguettes_. And in the midst of all this Genevieve had been summoned by her father's parents and told that she was not going to join her two older sisters and brother at Beauxbatons, but would be going to Hogwarts.

Genevieve had asked _why_? To ask as she had done had been a gross violation of family etiquette, but she'd been so shocked at the announcement.

Because she was the right age and she spoke good English for a French girl of her age, _grand-mère_ had informed her. Because this was _necessary_.

It was difficult for the family to get news from Britain, _grand-père_ had added. The Fudge administration was not amenable to adult foreigners. The family needed news if there was anything interesting involving _werewolves_ going on in the vicinity of Hogwarts.

Unless the family were truly desperate, _grand-père_'s words could have been nothing but an excuse invented to try and comfort her as far as Genevieve could see. One did not send an eleven year old girl to be the eyes and ears of a family, no matter how suspicious the British Ministry of Magic might be of adult foreigners.

Still, perhaps in giving her a reason for this _grand-père_ had actually spoken of something which was already on his mind at that moment. And if werewolves were truly on his mind… that hinted that there could be something _very_ serious going on here. The de Winters had stories – as did all of magical France's families – of the few short months between April and August in 1979, when werewolf allies of a British dark lord had repeatedly routed the finest magical France had to offer in a chain of skirmishes linking three devastating battles. Magical France of the 1970's had in theory been prepared for possible war – but it was preparation to fight a war of the kind which Grindelwald had ordered and coming from within Europe. Magical France of that time had completely disregarded the possibility of any threat coming from Britain, given the 'Wizarding War' raging there. It had seemed an entirely internal affair keeping all the troublesome British elements busy – and a conflict from which careful French witches and wizards could profit and which would certainly _never_ touch France's shores.

The historians and philosophers of magical France endlessly argued whether the capitulation after the disastrous Second Battle of Rheims had been a correct _moral_ choice? However: after a couple of years of more or less forced cordiality with the British dark lord and his allies, the British dark lord conveniently blew himself up, ridding magical France of an ally it hadn't ever set out to have in the first place. Those who had devised the plans of battle which had failed so spectacularly against the werewolves returned to power and reassured the good witches and wizards of _la Patrie_ that the werewolf incursion which had so recently shaken the political structures and communities of western magical Europe was now over and not only that but a one-off blip, unlikely to reoccur. And that had been it for almost a decade. Business once more as usual.

Except now something was causing disquiet in the halls of the de Winter family, and when put on the spot, Genevieve's _grand-père_ had mentioned werewolves.

Although Genevieve had held out hope for a while for a change in circumstances, _maman_ and _papa_ had applied to Hogwarts on Genevieve's behalf by the appropriate channels, and in time the acceptance letter had arrived. The day they had taken Genevieve shopping for her school supplies in Chinon had been the day that it had truly hit home that Genevieve wasn't going to avoid this fate. She would be going to a school where pupils were required to bring _pewter_ cauldrons for potion-brewing and wear dull black robes. She would be going to a school where proper manners of address and singing were _not_ a compulsory part of the curriculum.

Which, along with a portkey, a floo-trip, a steam-train (which had at least been presentable), and a boat-ride (Genevieve had frozen with fear when the linnorm appeared – what kind of school was this which had a linnorm 'gate-guard'?) had all brought her to where she was now, sitting on a bench in a hall, watching a rather old and battered hat proclaim the houses into which new pupils were placed. The troll had been a nice touch she had thought – a subtle comment, she was sure, on brute strength in the service of traditions and intellect which had probably been wasted on most of her fellow first years – and at least there was some amusement for her in trying to guess in which house children walking up to the hat were about to end up. She'd also tried to 'spot' The-Girl-Who-Lived before her sorting, amongst the diminishing ranks of first years on the benches, and completely failed. That Sophie Theresa Potter had looked so unextraordinary until she'd stood up in response to being called hadn't helped Genevieve at all in her identification. (Genevieve's actual 'likeliest' candidate as 'The-Girl-Who-Lived' by that point of the sorting had been a girl who subsequently turned out to be 'Sally Smith'.)

* * *

Genevieve watched the sorting till almost the end – the privilege of being considered to have a surname which began with 'w' – and then she had sallied forth to confront the Sorting Hat, confident she could wrap it around her little finger.

It actually _was_ a thousand years old, it turned out. It saw right through her, and declined to put her where she _wanted_ to go, in Hufflepuff.

And then it offered her a choice.

Genevieve was a devoted daughter of her family, naturally, but it irked her still that she had been sent here by them to Hogwarts. Ravenclaw would have been the more _sensible_, safer, lower-key, choice. Ravenclaw members were not so much watched nor otherwise had attention paid to them. Ravenclaw was, she was sure, the choice her family would have wanted her to make. In a moment of perversity she decided that if she couldn't have a Hogwarts house in which she could pretend to be someone of no consequence amongst those likely to trust easily, then she would flirt with danger, and settle for a house that might contain the closest thing which this school might have to her natural equals. She would go to a house where there were people in her year that perhaps it might be useful for her to _know_ in later life – and the only name of significance she recognised in Ravenclaw was that of the Romanov boy, who was already likely going to end up being mobbed by his housemates in consequence.

She informed the Sorting Hat that she would prefer Slytherin, _merci beaucoup_.

Within five minutes of arriving at the first-year Slytherin table, Genevieve was rapidly re-evaluating her opinions and prejudices. Just because British magical culture seemed at first glance a joke, this school's curriculum appeared to be sadly lacking in some areas, and all too many of her supposed equals she'd met on board the Express depressingly dull or simple, it didn't follow that all were complete losses. Some of her fellow Slytherins weren't _close_ to being her equals. They actually _were_ her equals, or perhaps surpassed her. Sophie Theresa Potter actually seemed as if she _could_ be dangerous, Neville Longbottom had unexpected depths, the bluntly spoken girl from northern England Sarah Studsley was practically _seething_ with ambition, Daphne Greengrass had remarkably acute social sense, and the native American just _watched_ everything like a hunter.

It would be a mistake to write-off any of the others too.

Hogwarts as an institution suitable for properly educating a young witch of Genevieve's particular qualities might well have a great many failings, but at least the immediate company – if somewhat odd to Genevieve at times – was probably the equal to what she could have found in Beauxbatons.

This could be a highly interesting year.

* * *

Author Notes:

I'm unaware of any canon nomenclature for the French magical government, so I've called it _le conseil des baguettes_ for the purposes of this particular universe.

In this particular universe, Voldemort's werewolf allies were considerably better organised and more effective than in canon, the elite 'troops' forming a body known as 'The Wolf Guard'. Whilst Voldemort intended them to be his weapon with which he would finish off the war in Britain, he sent them out of the country towards the end of the seventies, to make it look as if - as a problem for the British Ministry of Magic and its allies - they were subsiding, whilst in fact they were busy engaging in what effectively amounted to 'training exercises' on the continent and further afield. The Wolf Guard deliberately focused on causing 'nuisance value' property damage and humiliating the local magical law enforcement in France, since Voldemort's policy was to keep the French neutral or coerce them into a covert alliance, rather than to provoke them into taking a more active role in the Wizarding War on the side of the British Ministry of Magic.

I picked Chinon as a location for Genevieve to have gone shopping for her school supplies as canon has little to say about magical shopping districts in France, and (in the real world) the town has an annual 'medieval market'.

Genevieve is only eleven in this piece, and some of her information and opinions are a long way from perfect. I've tried to portray her as a bit snobbish about British things, a lot of which she views as rather unsubtle and crude. She has been brought up in a well-off and well-connected French family, has a veela mother, and is more than half-veela herself.

Whilst the main thrust of work in this universe is on events from Sophie's perspective, if you'd like to see more supplemental pieces 'following' other characters, please say so in reviews!


End file.
